Piney Creeks District: Ozark National Forest

We strayed away from our home turf and explored West. Memorial Day weekend at Richland Creek we decided; somewhere new. It is ClOSED for an undetermined amount of time due to the severe Spring Floods. The roads are washed out and trees are washed down. Luckily the parade road guard alerted us to this fact while we were waiting for the Whitt Springs Parade to pass.




He advised us to trek further West and into the Piney Creeks valley for fishing and dirt biking. We drove down a long FS road and pulled into the last remote campsite available. A couple was there for an afternoon of fishing. They let us pull in and pitch tent.



This was the snakiest place I have ever seen aside from the Temple of Doom.




We got to know and like these folks. The lady is from just down the road on Moccasin Creek and she was up for the afternoon . The more we heard about her home, the more we wanted to go see it. She owns 40 acres of a hollow that are grandfathered into the National Forest. It is a apart of the old Paige Homestead. The Paiges were from Mississippi and resettled into Moccasin Creek in the mid 1800s. Supposedly a couple of hundred people lived down in the hollow - and this is just hard for me to imagine.








This valley is so remote. The homestead has a home built in the 50's and numerous outbuildings on it from the mid 1800s and pastures and more swimming holes than one could ever hit in a weekend. They fed us and toured us around and there was no place else I'd rather be!







Unlike the Sylamore District of the Ozark National Forest, there were biting flying insects here and I'm not accustomed to that!